A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus (hereinafter, “MRI apparatus”) is configured to emit a radio frequency (RF) pulse onto an examined subject (hereinafter, “patient”) and to receive echo signals emitted from the patient upon receiving the RF pulse, with the use of a reception-purpose RF coil. Further, the MRI apparatus is configured to generate a cross-sectional image of the patient by analyzing the received echo signals.
In a conventional example, an image is generated by using a plurality of reception-purpose RF coils. In that situation, each of the reception-purpose RF coils is individually connected to the apparatus main body. The larger the number of connected reception-purpose RF coils is, the larger the number of connection cables is, and the more complicated handling of the reception-purpose RF coils becomes. For this reason, it is desirable to configure the reception-purpose RF coils to operate wirelessly.
To configure the reception-purpose RF coils to operate wirelessly, it is necessary not only to transfer the received echo signals to the apparatus main body side via a wireless communication, but also to control operations of the reception-purpose RF coils themselves via a wireless communication. For this reason, various techniques that can be used for controlling the operations of the reception-purpose RF coils via a wireless communication have been proposed.